Guest Dullblogger Justin McCann, a freelance writer, musician, and self-described “inveterate lurker” on Hey Dullblog, offers these observations on the Beatles’ musical context in 1963-65. Please give him a warm welcome. As innovative as the Beatles were, their rivals — the Stones, The Who, the Kinks, Bob Dylan et. al. — were often just as […]

Ron Howard’s Eight Days A Week documentary of the Beatles’ touring years is excellent. Not perfect, not a definitive look at the totality of the Beatles’ career, but very good at doing what it sets out to do. Howard does shy away from the unseemly elements of the Beatles’ life on the road, most obviously the rampant […]

Here’s that interview with John Lennon on the occasion of “A Spaniard In the Works” I alluded to in the Beatles and the Aristocracy comment thread. From the June 18th, 1965 edition of the BBC programme “Tonight” hosted by Kenneth Allsop, it’s a real reminder of why Britain needed the Beatles. And how the world […]

Gentle Readers, the following is an excerpt from Andrew Jackson’s “1965: The Most Revolutionary Year In Music.” You’ll have to read the book to decide whether his title speaks the truth, but in the meantime here’s Andrew’s take on The Beatles, Dick Lester, and the little-known bit of 60s cinema called “The Knack…and How to […]

MIKE GERBER • John, as we all know, claimed that “Ticket to Ride” was the first heavy metal song. (Actually he said “one of the first,” but we all know what John meant. He meant, “I personally invented heavy metal. As did Yoko.”) But this weekend, KLOS’s Chris Carter commemorated the anniversary of Mal Evans’ […]

DEVIN McKINNEY • We all know you can take the Beatles to the outer limit and upper extremity of significance—Best thing in universal history—and then narrow that unit to its subordinate but still-impressive absolutes: Best miracle of the 20th century; best socio-cultural force of the 1960s; Best group of the “rock era.” Having accepted all […]

MIKE GERBER • Sad news today: Sid Bernstein, one of America’s first Beatlemaniacs and a man who helped orchestrate the peerless mayhem of 1964 and 1965, has died at 95. “The son of a Harlem tailor,” wrote Bob Spitz, “he was convinced of The Beatles’ greatness before he ever heard them sing a note…Bernstein reached […]

Any of you that have been interested by my burblings on “psychedelia”—by which I mean the whole gestation, birth and decay of the flower-power movement—will be interested in a video I streamed from Netflix last night: “A Technicolor Dream.” It documents the UK scene: the Albert Hall poetry reading in 1965; the Indica bookstore; IT; […]

Help poster from Japan! Apparently that genial hot mess Help! is coming out on Blu-Ray next week. While looking for illustrators this evening I found a nice round-up of the various posters for the film. These two are just a sample if the many HELP posters; if you like graphic design, it’s definitely worth a […]

Devin just posted this wonderful photo of Brian Epstein on Facebook. When I asked him about it, he told me it was taken by David Bailey. Which led me, as the internet does, to this shot of BE from Bailey’s famous 1964 Box of Pinups: Also in Box of Pinups was this photo below, my all-time […]